More sad news from the U.K.

A middle aged woman and her children have house and cars repeatedly vandalized.  After a mid-night confrontation she retrieves an air pistol and rifle from her house and shoots a few rounds into the ground near them.  The police show up and arrest her but not the vandals.  Read about it here.

Mrs Walker was being driven towards breaking point by groups of youths “terrorising” her neighbourhood. She logged a catalogue of complaints with officers, from abusive phone calls to thefts and vandalism.

Anonymous callers would abuse her son as a “poof”. A wing mirror of her other son’s car was broken off, the garden shed was broken into, ornaments thrown over the wall and fish stolen from her pond.

The final straw came when she noticed that a five-litre plastic container of washing up liquid was moved from the back garden and emptied over her son’s car in the driveway.

She was “fuming mad” when she rushed out of her house at night to confront a knot of teenagers 250 yards away. After an exchange of abuse she returned home to arm herself with a Walther CP88 gas-powered air pistol, which she had kept in her underwear drawer for four months since she had been burgled, and an air rifle.

She phoned the police to tell them that she was going to “shoot the f****** vandals. I’ve got an air rifle and a pistol and I’m going to shoot them.”

Mrs Walker squared up to one 18-year-old, firing off several rounds from the pistol into nearby ground. The youth, Robert McKiernan, now 19, who has a number of convictions including burglary, told her that she was a “psycho”.

She later expressed surprise when an armed response unit arrested her and not the youths. Afterwards she complained to officers: “Police are very sympathetic but the law is on the side of these criminals and yobbos and not the victims. They have all the rights.”

In this country, at least in the habitable parts like Idaho and Eastern Washington, had it been a real gun and she had not shot it they probably would have run away.  They would have never come back and the police would not have had cause to arrest her.  But with a air pistol the risk of permanent injury or death to a health 18 year-old male is pretty low and they probably will now figure this is great fun.  I think I would have confronted them with full IPSC gear in plain view on my belt, eye and ear protection in place, and carrying a shovel.  I would have informed them that if they stayed any longer or ever came back they would be staying MUCH longer.  Probably it would technically be a punishable offense but the police and prosecutors here would almost for certain do no more than suggest you not do that again while thinking that you handled it better than they could have in their official capacity.

Oh, and of course you can count on this arrest and conviction to go on record as a “gun crime” and used as further evidence why air guns and replicas should be banned.

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